Officials at a key global warming research center in the United Kingdom have authenticated a series of e-mails and other documents apparently taken from their computer system by a hacker, but they cannot explain what scientists in internal exchanges meant by references to a “trick” that would “hide the decline” of global temperatures nor by instructions to delete contrary data.

According to the Australian Investigate magazine, the 62 megabyte Zip file with documents, e-mail exchanges and other information from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit apparently was posted by an unidentified hacker on a Russian web server.

One e-mail said: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd (sic) from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Another expressed internal doubts: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”

Further, an e-mail exchange suggested the suppression of information: “Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.”

“And, perhaps most reprehensibly,” Delingpole writes, “a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.”

(Story continues below)

He cites an e-mail: “This was the danger of always criticizing the skeptics for not publishing in the ‘peer-reviewed literature.’ Obviously, they found a solution to that – take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board …What do others think?”

Myron Ebell, of the GlobalWarming.org website where “cooler heads prevail,” said the e-mails are “shocking.”

“Its kind of interesting to learn that petty politics seems to be more prevalent in the scientific community than in the political community,” he said.

The documents, he said, “raise a huge number of questions about the integrity of a lot of people in the alarmist community.

“What I’ve seen there is a very strong effort to manage the issue by scientists and not as a scientific issues. It’s very improper,” he said. ” One of the criticisms is that we need scientists to be scientist, and policy can be handled in public debate.”

Delingpole observes the world “is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called ‘skeptical’ view is now also the majority view.”

Phil Jones, head of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, confirmed to Investigate magazine the documents appeared authentic.

“It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and e-mails,” he said.

“It’s completely illegal for somebody to hack into our system,” he told the magazine

But Jones denied there was any attempt to mislead or conceal.

“They’re talking about proxy data going further back in time, a thousand years, and it’s just about how you add on the last few years, because when you get proxy data you sample things like tree rings and ice cores, and they don’t always have the last few years,” he said.

Jones said he could not recall what he meant when he wrote about a plan to “hide the decline.”

In the e-mail, dated 10 years ago, Jones wrote: “Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998. Thanks for the comments, Ray. Cheers, Phil Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit.”

The documents also included a message dated last month from Kevin Trenberth to Michal Mann about the “U-turn on climate” by Britain’s BBC News.

“Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).”

Despite the advocacy of a financially vested former vice president, Al Gore, and others, public opinion about whether mankind is causing an ultimately catastrophic rise in global temperatures is shifting.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has urged members of Congress to consider the joint opinion of nearly 32,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s, who believe humans likely have little or nothing to do with any “global warming.”

The Petition Project, launched some 10 years ago when the first few thousand signatures were gathered, has steadily grown without any special effort or campaign.

But in the last few years, and especially because of the release of Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” the campaign has been reinvigorated.

“Mr. Gore’s movie, asserting a ‘consensus’ and ‘settled science’ in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore’s movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse,” project spokesman and founder Art Robinson has told WND.

“Our energy policies must be based upon scientific truth – not fictional movies or self-interested international agendas,” Paul said. “They should be based upon the accomplishments of technological free enterprise that have provided our modern civilization, including our energy industries. That free enterprise must not be hindered by bogus claims about imaginary disasters.”

The petition states: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”

Robinson has warned of serious political and economic consequencesof assuming “global warming” results from mankind’s actions.

“The campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded,” he said. “In the course of this campaign, many scientifically invalid claims about impending climate emergencies are being made. Simultaneously, proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries,” he told WND.

Warned Paul, “Above all, we must never forget our contract with the American people – the Constitution that provides the sole source of legitimacy of our government. That Constitution requires that we preserve the basic human rights of our people – including the right to freely manufacture, use, and sell energy produced by any means they devise – including nuclear, hydrocarbon, solar, wind, or even bicycle generators.

“While it is evident that the human right to produce and use energy does not extend to activities that actually endanger the climate of the Earth upon which we all depend, bogus claims about climate dangers should not be used as a justification to further limit the American people’s freedom,” Paul said.

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

Here’s the incredibly complicated language:

SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER.

Section 1905 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396d), as amended by sections 2001(a)(3) and
2001(b)(2), is amended— (1) in subsection (b), in the first sentence, by striking ‘‘subsection (y)’’ and inserting ‘‘subsections (y) and (aa)’’; and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘‘(aa)(1) Notwithstanding subsection (b), beginning January 1, 2011, the Federal medical assistance percentage for a fiscal year for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State shall be equal to the following:
‘(A) In the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), increased by 50 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5.

‘‘(B) In the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection for the State, increased by 25 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection.

‘‘(2) In this subsection, the term ‘disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State’ means a State that is one of
the 50 States or the District of Columbia, for which, at any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President has declared a major disaster under section 401 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and determined as a result of such disaster that every county or parish in the State warrant individual and public assistance or public assistance from the Federal Government under such Act and for which— ‘‘(A) in the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5, by at least 3 percentage points; and ‘‘(B) in the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection by at least 3 percentage points.

‘‘(3) The Federal medical assistance percentage determined for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State under paragraph (1) shall apply for purposes of this title (other than with respect to disproportionate share hospital payments described in section 1923 and payments under this title that are based on the enhanced FMAP described in 2105(b)) and shall not apply with respect to payments under title IV (other than under part E of title IV) or payments under title XXI.’’.

Scientific scandal appears to rock climate change promoters

Clarice Feldman

There’s big news for climate change students. A hacker has gotten into the computers at Hadley CRU, Britain’s largest climate research institute and a proponent of global warming, and seems to have uncovered evidence of substantial fraud in reporting the “evidence” on global warming; the unlawful destruction of records to cover up this fraud ,conspiracy,and deceit in the entire operation.

While hacking into the institute’s records is inappropriate if not illegal, the activities disclosed appear illegal and damaging to science and the economies of the world.

At first many of us were inclined to dismiss the posted emails from the Institute as fraud, but thehead of the institute admits the records were hacked and the emails seem genuine.

Here is a sample of the purportedly hacked material (1079 emails and 72 documents) available online:

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich
*******************************************

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.

This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
***

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.***

Thomas Lifson adds:

One interesting hacked email childishly insults American Thinker, by calling us “American Stinker.”

It is distressing to read that American Stinker item. But Keith
does seem to have got himself into a mess. As I pointed out in
emails, Yamal is insignificant. And you say that (contrary to
what M&M say) Yamal is *not* used in MBH, etc. So these facts
alone are enough to shoot down M&M is a few sentences (which
surely is the only way to go – complex and wordy responses
will be counter productive).
But, more generally, (even if it *is* irrelevant) how does Keith
explain the McIntyre plot that compares Yamal-12 with Yamal-all? And
how does he explain the apparent “selection” of the less well-replicated
chronology rather that the later (better replicated) chronology?
Of course, I don’t know how often Yamal-12 has really been used in
recent, post-1995, work. I suspect from what you say it is much less
often that M&M say – but where did they get their information? I
presume they went thru papers to see if Yamal was cited, a pretty foolproof method if
you ask me. Perhaps these things can be explained clearly and concisely – but I am not
sure Keith is able to do this
as he is too close to the issue and probably quite pissed of.
And the issue of with-holding data is still a hot potato, one that
affects both you and Keith (and Mann). Yes, there are reasons – but
many *good* scientists appear to be unsympathetic to these. The
trouble here is that with-holding data looks like hiding something,
and hiding means (in some eyes) that it is bogus science that is
being hidden.
I think Keith needs to be very, very careful in how he handles this.
I’d be willing to check over anything he puts together.
Tom.

The problem is that the files and emails seem just too good to be true. A number of files seem to be smoking guns — revealing how to resist Freedom of Information Act requests for their data (which would both be scientific misconduct and actually illegal); long-term marketing plans on how to push the climate-change agenda; and discussions of how to pressure peer-reviewed journals to stop accepting papers that disagree with the “accepted” view of global warming.

In other words, just what the skeptics have been suggesting for years. It seems just too neat, and we don’t have independent verification of where the files came from. Someone who is willing to hack might also be willing to create fakes.

But then, the whole package is very large — 63 megabytes — and seems to be very internally consistent. Several people have already corroborated a number of the emails as being ones they wrote or received. The package also includes substantial data and computer programs, which are being explored as this is being written.

Linda PanettathedaughterofLeon Panetta, who was recently named by Barack Obama to be thenew CIA director.

Linda is asupporter of all the anti-American regimesin this Hemisphere. Here she is with HugoChavez [Venezuela]and DanielOrtega [Nicaragua], two sworn enemies of the United States

She is a radical anti-American activistwho wants to close the anti-terrorist School of theAmericas,in Fort Benning , Georgia , where Columbian soldiers are trained. She saysthey are training criminals and is against any aid to the government of Colombia , our main ally in the region.

Would any reasonable and impartial individual beconcerned if anyof her activities are not duly probed and questionedduring herfather’sconfirmation hearings, would the Senate “advise or consent?”

These arefrightening factswhich should be made known to the American public and theycompelany reasonable and impartial Individualtopass themon.

Ft. Hood: When PC Kills

By George Handlery Created 2009-11-14 09:32 George Handlery about the week that was. The killing spree in Ft. Hood. Snake medicine and the snakes. Ignore what you see, believe what they say. How to legalize the Sharia without alarming anyone. Aid to the destitute, poverty through aid.

1. In the past, this writer has repeatedly handled themes related to political correctness. This was done to depict it as an idiocy that survives because so many of us are too foolish or cowardly to defy it. No wonder, the unmasked doubters of PC are quickly tagged as “bad human beings”. Now, we find out that that the killer’s associates had suspicions regarding the Ft. Hood murderer. These reservations concerning his political reliability and commitment were shared by the Major’s superiors. No one dared to undertake anything to deal with the problem that signaled itself through Hasan’s statements and his behavior. It was not the amount and the weight of the evidence that held back the concerned. It was that no one wished to jeopardize his career. Everybody stood in danger of being labeled a “racist” for speaking up and for stating what in PC terms was not supposed to exist at all. Such as that Hasan rated what he considered to be Islam’s command, more highly than his sworn duty to America.) The conclusion: PC is at its best stupid in its motives and ridiculous in their outcome. The case at hand demonstrates that PC also kills. Not only in Texas.

2. The reports that deal with Major Hasan’s slaughter like to quote the “suspect’s” relatives. These emphasize that the man is not capable of doing such a thing. He is a good person, devoted to healing, loves God, besides that, he is also a kind person. (Perhaps George Bush is really to be blamed in this case, too.) Actually, about the same thing could be said of a number of the great killers of history. It is to be assumed that Genghis Khan loved his horse. Lenin was kind to his cat. Hitler, scores as a vegetarian and he had strong feelings for his dog. About “Stalin and the animals” – except his camp guards – I know nothing. However, he smoked a Digby pipe. As this pipe smoker can tell you, pipe smokers are relaxed peaceful contemplative and wise characters. Seriously, as the joke recognizes, one can love mankind but hate ones neighbor. Some forms of devotion to a concept of the “good” do not exclude criminal behavior. If the “good” to which one is committed is an exclusive and not an inclusive concept then, cruelty is not an aberration but an intended consequence of the commitment. A creed might teach that it is more than the best path leading to the “good”. Those that take other approaches are not only wrong but their error is an expression of evil. In this case, proceeding with any means against these becomes not only permitted but also a command for the righteous (Soldier of Allah).

3. Quite naturally, the issues that flow from the growing Muslim presence provoke discussions in Europe, too. The trigger is the perceived resistance of a sizeable element within the Muslim community that goes beyond simply resisting adjustment to their chosen environment. Visible members of this migration hold the view that the local culture, the way of life and religion is to be rejected as inferior, even as improper. Over the resulting issue, the “uncouth” perception of the public collides with that of the fans of multi-culturalism. This becomes a conflict between the experienced reality of the “barefooted” and the favored PC-hatched theory of the privileged “political class” with opinion-making influence and media access. A campaign is rolling over the landscape. Its aim is to convince people not to notice what they see. A typical product of it has been a recent essay that appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (rated to be within the global top ten). Its tenor was that the God of the Jews, Christians and Moslems is the same God. Therefore, there being no difference, there is also nothing to be concerned about. One of the important arguments made is that, consequently, a politically and socially unfolding Islam can represent no problem. After all, most resident Muslims do not practice their faith. As a responding letter-writer pointed out, this argument makes the earlier claims regarding the “religion of peace” irrelevant. What is being said is that the aggressive and dominant aspects Islam can show are not to be feared. That is supposedly so because the nominal practitioners of the faith do not take their religion seriously. The question that arises is: and what if they become serious about what they outwardly avow to be no more than folklore.

4. Nowadays, any talk about the possible incremental introduction of the Sharia in currently non-Muslim countries, sounds like a fiction that extrapolates a figment of paranoid political imagination. Those who react by dismissing even the possibility of the impossible happening should be reminded that a number of countries have already begun to bend their laws to accommodate Islamist demands. With that, a fundamental principle is coming close to being violated. It is that religious conviction is not admitted as a justification to violate the law applying to all. Reason suggests that this pertains to a special extent to immigrant communities. These have knowingly chosen to live under the system of their choice whose rules they claim to have a right to not only to ignore but also to breach. Therefore, the concessions mentioned involve a critical matter. Giving way here by creating law-free-zones means ignoring the foundations of the host’s own system. If the past century teaches us something it is that, what is popularly regarded as impossible has a way of coming about.

The creeping in of the Sharia will be difficult to oppose. The process will begin by admitting it in some areas that will be declared to be private and therefore outside of the intended reach of the law. In these areas then, among consenting individuals, arrangements that conform to the cultural peculiarities of the participants will be permitted. If in such cases the application of the Sharia by “consenting adults” will take place, then so be it. Even when the decision is made, those permitting the practice will know, but refuse to admit that, the “consent” will be extorted. The decision resulting will also do more than legalize the settling in private matters in a way agreed upon by a closed community. The judgments rendered will not only disregard the basic law of the hosting land: It will be likely to violate it.

5. Latin America is ailing of a state of pleasant and self-induced state of historical amnesia. One might add that, a corresponding phenomenon is detectable among the – due to their experience – more unlikely candidates located in what used to be the Soviet Empire. Consequently, incrementally Socialism and planned economies are being introduced south of the Rio Grande. Unlike the area where the trial was first launched and crashed, the experiment – which, having been tested, is not really an experiment at all – is not becoming government policy by force or conquest alone. The writer does not intend to overlook the role of violence in places such as Cuba and Venezuela. Nor does he ignore the threat of government by force that Allende was about to shackle Chile with before his overthrow. Nevertheless, Socialism, a form of communalist dictatorship dedicated to re-making man, his values, way of life and mores, can still draw support. It comes from those who are enabled to ignore the consequences of such snake medicine. This applies even in Eastern Europe where, it became obvious that not only the patient but even the snakes are decimated by the potion touted as curing all ills.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Digging in for a long struggle, Republican senators and governors assailed the majority Democrats’ newly minted health care legislation Thursday as a collection of tax increases, cuts in services for the elderly and heavy new burdens for deficit-ridden states.

Despite the criticism, indications were growing that Democrats would prevail on an initial Senate showdown set for Saturday night, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Democrat, crisply rebutted the Republican charges. He said the bill “will save lives, save money and save Medicare,” the main health program for the elderly.

The legislation is supposed to be designed to answer President Barack Obama’s demand to expand coverage, end insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions, and restrain the growth of health care spending.

“It makes no sense at all and affronts common sense,” said Sen. Judd Gregg, one of several Republicans to criticize the measure. He added that a plan to expand Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, was a “bait and switch” with states as the victims.

Republican governors, meeting in Texas, agreed. “We all know a sucker play when we see one,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana. The bill would expand the Medicaid program, which provides health care for the poor, and leave the states with part of the additional cost beginning after three years. Medicaid is administered by the states.

In the Capitol, Reid answered Republican delaying tactics with an initial vote set for Saturday evening to determine whether he has the 60 votes needed to move the legislation forward. That so-called “supermajority” in the 100-member Senate is required to advance the bill toward full debate, expected to begin after Thanksgiving.

Counting two independents, Democrats control 60 Senate seats. Three relatively conservative Democrats have been cagey about their intentions, although none has announced a plan to defect. Officials disclosed during the day that Reid had included in the bill a political sweetener for one of the three, Mary Landrieu, in the form of $100 million to help her state cover health care costs for the poor.

While the struggle was forming, there were limits. Republican Sen. Tom Coburn backed off his threat to force the 2,074-page bill to be read aloud in the Senate chamber, a move that would have eaten into the Senate’s Thanksgiving-week vacation.

Given the political stakes, there was disagreement even about the bill’s cost.

Democrats put the price tag at $979 billion, higher than the $849 billion figure they had cited Wednesday as the cost of expanding coverage to 31 million who now lack insurance. Republicans calculated it at more like $1.5 trillion over a decade, and said even that was understated because Reid decided to delay implementation of some of the bill’s main features until 2014.

Officially, the Congressional Budget Office said the measure would reduce deficits by $130 billion over the next decade with probable small reductions in the 10 years that follow. Those forecasts cheered rank-and-file Democrats.

Every modern White House has put out news on contentious issues late on Friday in the hope that doing so will bury it, or reduce the amount of critical scrutiny it would otherwise receive. What is unusual is the degree to which this White House has relied on this tactic.

On Friday, Jan. 30, President Obama revoked the ban on giving taxpayer dollars to international groups that promote or perform abortions abroad. The president released his executive orders on detainee interrogations, closure of the Guantanamo prison, and new ethics rules during the previous week, his first in office.

On Friday, Feb. 27, Mr. Obama announced he would end U.S. combat activities in Iraq in 18 months. This was a much longer combat presence than his antiwar base wanted.